Just when it goes mainstream…
Apr 12th, 2009 by Cathy Jo Nelson
Twitter has suddenly seemingly gone mainstream. It seems that everything and everyone has a twitter account. Twitter did not make a lot of sense to me at first, but after I cultivated a network of like-minded folks there, I was truly proud of my network and tried to stoke it daily just to make sure I stayed connected to these wonderful, trusted contacts. That is until yesterday when the infected user StalkDaily (aka agangster) tried to follow me. (Here is a link to a Tech Crunch article not the profile.) Check out this search.
Why do you want to follow me?
As a general rule, I usually “check out” every new follower, especially with the recent rash of vendors and businesses using twitter as a contest venue to see who can have the most followers. I also block those twitter folks who seem to be using twitter for get rich quick schemes or have interests far from my own. In researching profiles, I follow only people I knew directly or have something in common with–>a passion for education. There were a few unrelated that I allowed a follow or followed back as I thought I could challenge or stretch my thinking. I cannot explain why I enjoy it so much, and there are many naysayers who think of it as very shallow and not worthwhile. All I have to say to that is Twitter is what you make of it.
Cathyjo, you are our target
So it was really sad yesterday to become the target of the StalkDaily worm that hit sometime yesterday morning and then resurged yesterday afternoon. I was offline most of the day, enjoying family time all day Saturday in Columbia, SC. We attended the final Spring Game (USC Gamecocks scrimmage) and then hung out down at Five Points after the game. My youngest son will be a freshman at USC this fall, and has lined up a trainer/manager’s position with the football team. So we have been going to Columbia on the weekends to help him learn his way around before he goes there to live in August–yes, he will start when the football team returns, and work with them at practices, etc.
Infection viral-what is the antidote?
When I found I was infected thanks to Sue Waters and Kristin Hokanson, I rapidly took measures to clear my profile of the nasty worm. Both friends showed me how to get rid of it. It took clearing cache & cookies, deleting the spammer tweets, and resetting my password to get it cleared. I changed my password four times, which resulted in my being temporarily banned from Twitter. Then I realized I had lost some of my followers. My guess is that any of my friends online during my “attack” and defense were automatically unsubscribed from my feed, possibly a measure by Twitter for suspect profiles. I made my profile suspect by changing the password so many times in such a short span of time. That’s my guess anyway. Here’s another credible guess.
Am I safe now? Who Knows…
I still do not think I’m out of the woods yet. I guess I’ll lay low for a day or two in Twitter, and invest myself in family time today and tomorrow, the last 2 days of my spring break. If you follow me on Twitter, you may want to check to see if you were unsubscribed from my feed. I promise I’m not infected anymore and I’ve taken measures to maintain my security and safety on Twitter. As I get reqests from unknown new followers now, instead of checking their profile, I am now scoping them out in Twiiter Search. Strange, but it is the only real (and hopefully safe) way to check out a new contact for the time being. Profiles are OFF LIMITS for me right now. I’m very gunshy. In the meantime, look out for the StalkDaily profile, a real gangster.
Image: ‘Fear of the Dark‘
www.flickr.com/photos/68134711@N00/2255781557
Image: ‘Spy‘
www.flickr.com/photos/32113216@N00/2381394978
Cathy,
Your experience with the virus was upsetting on many levels. It was tough to see a friend get so frustrated. It was also difficult to wrap my mind around the idea that my PLN relies on such fragile technology. Sure, I can reconnect with many of you via my Google Reader and email, but not all 500+ people. I would lose contact with many who add ideas, share humor, and enlarge my thinking. Not pleasant to contemplate. Twitter – and Plurk – add a lot to my professional and personal life. I’d hate to lose either.
Sorry to hear about your Twitter hijack. Makes me glad I’ve never clicked on the links in the twitter emails. In fact, I had found out that if you go to your own twitter pages and click on your followers page (the one that lists all the folks who follow you), you can just mouse over the twitter name and their profile text pops up w/o you’re having to actually visit their profile page. This made it easier (and faster) for me to decide which of the new followers I want to block or follow. I only follow folks who have library, education, or teacher listed in their profile text. If it appears they are a vendor or say “fan” in their twitter name, I block them. After reading your post, I’m doubly glad I don’t have to actually go to any of my followers profile page to decide if I want to follow them or not!
It was definitely nasty and very frightening. My solution has to copy their twitter name from the email and search it using Twhirl. Then follow people using Twhirl. Time wise now finding that is similar to visiting their web profile.
But still unhappy
My daughter was watching “Oprah” on Friday when I got home from work and said the first segment was about Twitter. Definitely going way more mainstream now that she is on Twitter, I’m sure.
She will never have a meaningful network there. Never. The love affair with Twitter is over if Oprah is embracing it. No doubt about it.